i love this ultra-caveman, truly the hero we deserve with his special brand of ULTRA VIOLENCE

Second episode was really good. I'm enjoying the supporting cast so far and I dig the humorous elements they bring to the show. I'm definitely enjoying both the opening and closing songs (I almost always skip the closing songs, but this one I'll keep watching). The action was again excellent and Gedos's nose tentacle is possible the most disgusting attack I've seen on an Ultraman show.

Surprisingly more comedy than initially expected. Which is okay in my book. No need to make it Ultra dark and gritty with zero levity.

SKaRD's first day... was also unexpected. It's not an up and coming high tech base yet as they usually do which usually it's used as an insult to the new guys but they handled it with good reason behind the low budget feel it had.

And Ultracaveman fishing.

The opening is great! The ending is actually really good as well but we heard that last week.

The humour in this episode really hit right with me. The whole "I'm putting together a team" bit was charmingly awkward.

The SKaRD team make a good first impression, they seem like a good bunch of weirdos.

And yes, Blazar turning his Javelin thing into a fishing rod to catch (and cook!) Gedos is great. Poor Gedos.

I haven't opened mine yet, but since I pre-ordered it, I imagine it's faulty. I sent an email via your link but I think I may just try to replace it on Amazon.

The original Ultraman holds up extremely well imo. I'm surprised by how engaging it is.

Episode 2 of Blazar is the one that introduces most of the elements of the show that really had me excited about it, and it introduces them flawlessly. The idea of Gento as a protagonist in that middle-management position especially, where he'll have to struggle as both a leader and a subordinate, that's rich with a lot of fun storytelling potential, and it also ties back into that whole "communication" theme that strikes me as a super interesting idea to spend a series tackling.

And really, that's the secret to why this episode is great -- just about everything contributes to that theme. In the opening alone, you've got the cast introduced through paperwork, followed by all different kinds of media framing much of the imagery throughout the chorus. The plot has several instances of information getting mixed up, and constantly highlights all these awkward bits of interaction between the cast, like getting a simple signature being surprisingly not simple. It's genuinely brilliant, I think, because the script is so full of sharp intent all the way through, and it uses that theme to very naturally breathe life into the characters and humor into the drama, so simply on a surface level, before even thinking about the broader picture, there's a huge benefit to the tight focus. Little things like Anri clearly being confused if "wilco" is like some official affirmative phrase for SKaRD or not for a split second before just going with a simple "roger" instead, they worked wonders to endear me to this cast after only one real episode with most of them.

And this is all before even talking about the part where Ultraman goes fishing for a monster, so like, the episode's not hurting for creative and engaging giant action either, if that side of the show was in doubt for some reason. Honestly, calling this episode "great" might still be selling it short? This humble little story is kind of staggeringly well-constructed no matter what angle you're looking at it from, and if this is just what normal looks like for Blazar as a series... pretty exciting times might be ahead!

The English dub is quite good like Z. I guess this makes JYB the first power ranger alumni to be an ultra as well?

He was also the voice of Kamen Rider Dragon Knight in a video game.

Oh yeah, you're right. He did voice work for that too. Been a while that I forgot. :lolol

the Blazar opening was such banger! love the interactions between Gento and Emi. hope a future strong familial bond developing xD
refreshing to see the ultra being the team's captain.

I think I will do Kiwami's version of the Ultraman template, in text form, if only because I didn't watch enough of the Ultra Series franchise to warrant on saying what show or character I ended up hating or what unpopular opinion I do have about a certain series, at least for now, and to keep things a bit simpler for me.

Favorite Series: Ultraman Mebuis
Best MC: Mirai Hibino/Mebius
Favorite Opening: Ultraman Mebius
Favorite Ending: Promise For The Future
Favorite Villain: Alien Guts
Best Design (Basic Form): Ultraman Max
Favorite Heroine: Asuna Yamase
Favorite Team: Crew GUYS
Favorite Secondary Ultraman: Ultraman Hikari/Hunter Knight Tsurugi
Best Duo: If between the Ultra and his human host count, Z and Haruki. If not, Mebius and Hikari.
Favorite Dark/Evil Ultra: Camearra
Best Captain Team: Shingo Sakomizu followed by Shota Hebikura/Jugglus Juggler
Favorite Monster: Seabozu
Favorite Alien: Alien Metron
Favorite Movie: Superior 8 Ultra Brothers
Favorite Robot: King Joe STORAGE Custom
Favorite Side Character: Mitsuhiro Ide
Best Final Form: Ultraman X Hybrid Armor

Well, I might as well fill out Kiwami’s changed spaces, even if I never edit the template or my version accordingly.

Favourite alien: Alien Valky

Favourite monster: Neo Darambia

Favourite robot: Terraphaser.

Favourite side character: Akito Hijiri.

I just started the Saucer Series in Ultraman Leo:

Jeez, did they really need to reboot/retool the series this late in the game?

Like, okay, nobody really cared about MAC other than Gen and Dan so that doesn't really stand out as much beyond how ballsy it is to destroy an entire Attack Team and basically leave the protagonist out of a job.

I guess Dan's mustache was a foreboding sign of things going wrong. Although they have Goh give him Sevenger and he never really does anything with it, but while I know he's not really dead, I guess they really wanted Gen to start handling things on his own.

I can't believe they one-upped RoU. I mean, killing the love interest, the human best friend...but also a little girl. And honestly I liked Kaoru more than Tooru, so that hit hard. I felt like the sports club cast brought more heart and humanity to the show than MAC did.

I guess the Sports Club managed survived by virtue of being written out.

And then we just see Gen and Tooru lose pretty much everyone they loved and cared about and then just...move in with some random lady and her daughters? Like they don't even get long to grieve but suddenly they're in a sitcom situation like it never happened? At least in RoU the girl Goh and Jiro moved in with was an actual character who appeared before and you could kind of see what they're going for. I get that Gen had already lost an entire planet and family other than Astra by that point, so maybe he learned to process that stuff better, but Tooru should be wayyyy more depressed.

Update on this:

Cleopatra will send me a replacement disk for free. Which makes me a happy camper since I don?t have to deal with Amazon and potentially returning it overseas.

So I will have to wait a little bit longer for the new disk before I can finally watch Shin Ultraman, but what are a few more weeks after waiting so long?

I should have shared my version in blank form, sorry, here it is:

https://i.imgur.com/KzxJekC.jpg

Just finished episode 20 of Ultraman Max and I am already halfway through the series. I also watched episodes 10-17 of Z in its original Japanese and even watched the second episode of Blazar in both languages as well as being less than 20 episodes away from finishing up on Taro. I'm also seriously considering checking out Geed in the near future.

Any in hand reviews of the updated Shin Ultraman bluray?

Reviews on Amazon are less than flattering. The subtitles in particular apparently leave a lot to be desired.

I just finished watching the original Japanese version of Ultraman Z, and just like with the English dub, the show is truly a fun ride from start to finish and it's just a damn good show all around no matter the language one happens to watch the series on especially from the technical standpoint and is also among my top favorite Ultraman series right alongside with Mebius, Tiga, Ultraseven, and X. I should also be able to finish off Max pretty soon in a couple of weeks.

I inexplicably started watching Ultraman Trigger today. Admittedly, I do have to watch this series eventually.

It gets kind of a bad rap, but I think the criticism is a little overblown.

Earth Garon deploys and I'm reminded of the Kiryu Godzilla Films which I love it for that.

SKaRD is an enjoyable bunch of people, the whole training montage with the miniature city and the huge guidebook with all the colored bookmarks was a joy to see.

Earth Garon's debut fight may not have gone as planned, but Blazar getting burned and the pause after Tarantalar fires his beam was just plain fun.

Next Episode: Is that the Gigginox?

Insect Kaju's! Classic!

New Generation MechaGodzilla is looking good! Also the full mechanics team reminds me a lot of STORAGE.

I like how Emi is so energetic and enthusiastic while Anri is more low energy and awkward. But it seems like Wilco has really caught on as the thing everybody says now.

The training sequence reminded me of Decker. Also setting up Anri as their main CQC girl. And Emi is special forces? Is that why she seems to have some kind of "in" with command?

Ha. Look at that manual! And they ended up taking it out during battle!

Ahhh! Gento has a picture of his family in his locker and keeps his ring right next to it! Now the question is when we'll meet his wife and son in the flesh.

I love how Gento bonded with Blazar because he saw a humanoid in a Showa Ultra Sphere and just ran straight into it thinking it was someone who needed help.

Plant worker Emi! She looked good in that blue dress!

It took me a second to recognize that as Tomokazu Seki, though he got as hammy as you would expect from him. I was kind of expecting an Alien Icarus or Glen Fire joke.

I love how the dude never realized Emi didn't actually work there no matter how many times she kept talking to SKaRD.

Some inter-office friction. I guess nobody's used to leaving the Kaiju to SKaRD quite yet.

Earth Garon looking cool! Too bad it landed it's arm right where Taganular's fusion reaction was centered and fried itself. But it still managed to back Blazar up!

Taganular is hot! So hot that Blazar couldn't even touch him. And he was heavy too! Good thing Blazar angled up the fusion reaction in his body in such a way that it became a skybeam instead of destroying the city.

Sure Ultraman saved the day, but I think they did a solid job! And not just because Ultraman is actually their boss!

Next week: Emi focused episode and Levias!

So this came outta no where.
An all new Gaia form, Gaia Super Supreme, a fusion of Gaia SV and Agul SV. He's designed by his original designer, Hiroshi Maruyama.
https://m-78.jp/news/post-6814

Wow that's a surprise. We might not have gotten a New Generation Gaia (Gaiar? Gayer? Hehehe), but it's good to see that we're not forgetting Gaia at all. It's a good looking form, too. Love it.

I got mine in the mail today. I'll post thoughts as soon as I watch it.

Yoooo that looks good. :rock:

Wow, pretty nice!

Dubtitles only
https://images2.imgbox.com/96/3b/DqHagfP9_o.jpg

So the "issue" they "fixed" wasn't that there were close caption dubtitles instead of subtitles. The issue was the formatting of said dubtitles. So now we got close caption dubtitles without format errors, and that's the desired end result? Fantastic.

Honestly, kind of a fuck up on Tsuburaya's part here. I never heard about this publisher before and now I hopefully never will again. Why not give it to people who actually released Toku before? Or hell, the people over at Mill Creek who put out a dozen of Ultraman shows already?

Now I'm stuck with this garbage, since even a year after it came to cinemas; I need to import an American home media release to even watch it legally in the first place. Because every "western" digital release is region locked.

Shin Kamen Rider meanwhile? On my regional Amazon Prime, 4 months after its theatrical release.

For all the great and commendable things Tsuburaya does with Ultraman when it comes to accessibility, global distribution of Shin Ultraman is just abysmal.

I think Shin Kamen Rider coming to streaming so quickly was more a result of the poor box office performance it had. Especially vs Shin Ultraman or Shin Godzilla. But also, like, Amazon just gets dibs on “Adult” Kamen Rider shows for some reason? Haha.

That Shin Ultraman blu ray release is a travesty though. Someone take a look at the main menu on that thing, it’s awful!

I don’t know where I read this, might have been here, but the company that released the blu ray only does English language movies/shows. So, of course, they are only thinking about the subtitles needing to match the dub. Probably why they only made a close caption track too. They might just think the only people who would need subtitles are deaf/hard of hearing.

It’s a shame too, because there are perfectly good english subtitles readily available.

Here’s the next question: is the onscreen text translated for the dub where you don’t have to also have closed captions on for everything? Like, can they just translate the text onscreen and only that?

Yeah, they fixed the formatting errors but it's still a low-budget release. From what I can gather based on my limited Japanese knowledge, however, the dubtitles are at least close enough.

I remember reading a bunch of people on twitter talking about the dub vs sub for Squid Game on Netflix.

A lot of people complained about the dub being less accurate and missing nuance vs the sub, but the big reason for all that is that the dub team had to worry about saying a sentence that could basically match the mouth movements of the original actor. The subtitle people just kind of have to worry about putting up a sentence that could be read in your head, vs the dub team’s worry of having to read a sentence out loud.

So if there is a difference between sub and dub, it’s because of that. Both kind of serve different purposes, but the worst of both worlds is a dubtitle, lol.

Sorry if this is real basic stuff that anybody should know. I didn’t know it until I saw it all on twitter two or three years ago.

Oh shoot. I keep pulling up this thread because I wanted to say Ultraman Blazar is good.

There, I said it. I’m very pleased with the show!

I’m watching the dub too, lol.

I didn't feel like I had too much to say about episode 3 of Blazar that wouldn't apply to every other episode so far (it's quite entertaining!), but on the subject of English dubs, I've been watching every episode of Blazar twice, and have recently finished getting all the way through Z again with its dub, so I really want to take some time out to say that the quality of both has been extremely commendable, top marks work.

I'm watching Blazar episodes again like the day after, with the Japanese voices still fresh in my head, and as someone who is listening to both audio tracks, rather than only mostly reading one of them, I'm hard pressed to tell that much of a difference in the experience so far. I think the decision to translate 「俺が行く」 as "I've got this" kinda says it all. There's clear thought and care being put into the localization, and that's a good thing for a show that was made the same way.

It's been a while since I've sat down and watched Z in Japanese, so there's more room for me to be forgetting some particular bit of amazing subtlety that ~maybe~ got lost in translation, but on the same token, meeting the English audio more as its own thing thanks to that distance, I can again say it felt like it captured the show's spirit pretty much perfectly. There's a lot of fantastic comedy and heavy drama alike all over the place throughout Z, and it never came off to me like the new voices were failing to do justice to the humor and the heart that made that show the instant classic it became.

I'm pretty sure I've expressed some skepticism about the idea of dubbing a tokusatsu show into English on these forums before, and these two shows have gotten me to change my stance on that just by themselves. There's definitely a potential audience out there for whom quickly reading line after line of text is a big ask, which I'm maybe out of touch with as someone already so into this whole scene. (I recall someone making the very smart point that these particular shows are aimed at children, which seems a pertinent thing to bring up.) If Z and Blazar's dubs get people who otherwise couldn't be bothered to experience these great shows, I think that's only a good thing, when the versions they're experiencing are putting in the effort to live up to the originals.

Squid Game dub-pilled me. I used to think live action dubs could only be like those old hong kong action movie dubs, or the cheesy godzilla dubs that everyone makes fun of. But nowadays the baseline quality for these dubs is actually pretty high.

My one trick to tell if it is an excellent dub, vs a great one: how many unnatural pauses in a sentence are there? We get it, the actor in the scene closed their mouth and the dub actor should not be talking during that bit, but did the localizer rewrite a sentence to fit the actor closing their mouth, or did they have the dub actor pause ... unnaturally in the middle of a sentence? It takes a lot more effort to rewrite a line to work with a live action actor’s mouth movements vs just having the dub actor pausing randomly while saying the line to make it work with the footage in the booth. I’m not mad about it, and that’s why I say it’s the difference between “great” and “excellent.”

I am now down to the final five episodes of Ultraman Max and it looks like I'll be able to finish the series sooner than I thought. I am also up to episode 5 of Ultraman Trigger and I even inexplicably started watching Ultraman Decker with its first two episodes and that series is already off to a pretty good start. Once I'm done with Max, I'm planning to continue right where I left off on Ultraman Taro before jumping into either the first season of the Mega Monster Battle series or Ultraman Orb via streaming. I also watched the third episode of Ultraman Blazar both in Japanese and in English.

So I watched my Shin Ultraman replacement disc. There were no code formatting errors and they subtitled the opening, but it's still not impressive. The subtitles often don't line up with what characters are saying, I counted at least 3 typos, and, as we've established, they're dubtitles.

Also, even though the original Japanese with subtitles did make the movie more enjoyable for me, I just didn't enjoy it that much overall. I still hate the structure of the film being made up of four only somewhat related sections, and I still think that the middle two stores (Zarab and Mefilas) are mostly unenjoyable, and unfortunately, they both felt like they came out of nowhere. That being said, I think the first and final acts are both fantastic - I just wish the middle felt more tied in with everything else going on.

Overall, here's how I'd rank the Shin films:
1. Shin Godzilla
2. Shin Evangelion (Evangelion 3.0+1.0)
3. Shin Kamen Rider
4. Shin Ultraman

Earth Garon with happy eyes is adorable.

Fantastic episode! Reminds me of that one Decker Episode, but still very good in its own right. Loving how the team dynamic works how Gento is knowledgeable in his own way as a Captain rather than just being the leader who gives people orders.

Leviera is one insane kaiju design, very reminiscent of Nexus, and I'm loving the night fights as they really let Blazar shine (hah) and it's just nice to see every now and then.

Next Episode: Another very Nexus Kaiju and a very Evangelion weapon primed and ready.

Secretary Emi! It's amazing how much a difference glasses and parted hair can make!

Did they repurpose Greeza's vocals for Leviera? It even fights like Greeza, kinda. I really like the effect when it opens it's "mouth."

Emi joined up at 17? So she went into the military instead of college? She always seemed kind of young, but I kind of wonder why she got into this. A strong sense of civic duty?

"I have my ways" - Just some flexing from the Captain!

Yasonubo's turn at bat with Earth Garon!

I did think it was a little out-of-character for Emi to get so upset, but it was just acting. I do wonder what those Aquarium goers thought about that outburst. A lovers' spat?

Sonezaki may be a guy who needs to meditate to his own theme song talking about how awesome he is, but he's not completely stupid.

I like the design for that Space Beast.

Ah, the old "create my own man-made Kaiju then sell off the deterrent so I can earn money and gain the respect of others while also planning my own army of Kaiju" plot.

It's the job of the Captain to back up his subordinates and confront the real villain like the hero of the day, and we even get to see Gento fight hand-to-hand!

I know Anri is their CQC expert, but Emi is no slouch in a fight. Her movements were so smooth and flawless!

How do you fight a Kaiju that can disappear on you and you can barely get a hold of? Why, freeze it with Nitrogen of course! Emi and Earth Garon really come through for Blazar in this episode!

Ahhh! Emi got roses for Gento's family out of gratitude! I wasn't sure if the team was aware he was married...although no surprise Emi knew one way or another.

Next week: Anri episode and Godos unleashed!

Episode 4 of Blazar was typically solid. Loved the focus on Emi's undercover work, love the blunt visual storytelling of the antagonist's scrapbook of his own greatness burning up after his evil plan falls apart (almost as much as I love Emi causally tossing the book on the ground before that), and I love that the whole story was only made possible because somebody lost track of important paperwork, because that gets right back to that sharp intent in the themes I mentioned talking about episode 2.

And speaking of communication, I'm really loving the currently wordless, kinda stealth buddy cop dynamic Gento and Blazar have? The idea of Blazar being the one who chooses when to transform especially is just brilliant; it's extremely endearing here seeing him all ready to fight while a surprised Gento hastily scrambles to engineer the usual window to run around a corner where nobody will see him do his thing. Like they just don't quite have this whole partnership thing down yet, which again, could make for a very satisfying arc depending on where the show takes it.